> > via a switched 100BaseT network.
>
> Groovy - you never know when the FAT or NTFS filesystems are
> going to get to "that point" at which your files become unusable.

my method for this (at places i need to manage windoze) is to partition
windoze computer disk to have about 1GB first partition and rest as
second.
on the 1GB partition i install all windoze, programs that user needs,
configure it all, but setting swap file to second partition, and putting
set TEMP=D:\temp
set TMP=d:\temp
in autoexec.bat

then set all user programs (and tell user) to store of user files on
partition D:

then i boot NetBSD from install CD or floppies and

ifconfig <what's needed>
mount_msdos /dev/wd0e /mnt
cd /mnt
cat /dev/zero >wipefreespace

then wait until error

sync
rm wipefreespace
cd /
umount /mnt

mount some_nfs_server:/some_writable_dir /mnt
cd /mnt
gzip -9c /dev/rwd0e >backup_of_machine_XXX_rwd0e.gz
dd if=/dev/rwd0d of=backup_of_machine_XXX.mbr bs=512 count=1
cd /
umount /mnt

then i record eltorito CD with 2.88M NetBSD boot image and these 2 files.


in case of wincrash:

1)boot from that CD.
2)mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0a /mnt; cd /mnt
3)cat backup_of_machine_XXX.mbr >/dev/rwd0d
4)disklabel -r wd0
5)gzip -cd backup_of_machine_XXX_rwd0e.gz >/dev/rwd0e
6)reboot, scandisk second partition


this rescue task takes <10 minutes.